I´m not a fan of these Spanish keyboards, so sorry this turned into two messages. This last week has been fairly interesting and ecome incredible starting from right after my email last week. During P-day last week my companion and I were out getting lunch and some things for the week, and a man ran up to me saying that God had answered his prayer. His name was Raul, and he was having a lot of trouble at home with the woman he lived with, and the morning before he saw us he had prayed that God would send him someone that could help him. As soon as he saw us he was overcome with emotion and only wanted to walk with us and talk for a short time. He is currently unemployed but is trying to become a drummer. I told him that I had done a little bit of drumming when I had lived in the United States and he got a big smile on his face and pulled some drum sticks out of his back pocket that I had not noticed before. He asked me to teach him, and although I couldn´t really teach him a lot on the street he was able to get some basic rythyms down that will hopefully help him in the future. We continued to talk and he said he knew a little bit about our church because he had aquired a Restoration pamphlet at some point earlier that he didn´t share with us. We ended up being late back to the CCM by about 20 minutes but as we were leaving I got his adress and contact information, and when I looked back in the taxi he was on his knees crying. I wish that I had taken everything I possibly could that would have helped Raul that day, but I sincerely hope that the missionaries that are in this area will find him and give him the help that he needs.
In our classes this week we have had two of the same maestros two weeks before and one new maestros. However we are now only being taught in Spanish and some of the missionaries are struggling a lot with understanding everything being taught. At times I run into words that I don´t recognize and I need explained to me but I´m definitely progressing. One of the best things I read this week would have to be a scripture that was shown to me by Hermana McNevin, who is in my district, and it´s pretty much all of Romans 8 but from verse 17 until the end of the chapter Paul says some pretty great stuff that I think can help us all out. My scripture study has become so much more in depth and meaningful since I arrived here at the CCM, I enjoy reading all the scriptures at every available opportunity that I have (which isn´t very much) and finding verses and lines that strengthen my testimony and can help me teach more effectivelyl. There is an answer for every question that we have in the scriptures, all we have to do is put forth the effort to look for it and ponder the message in our hearts once we find it.
My companion is getting better with the language, but I still do about 75% of the talking in the lessons if we include translating. And our relationship has been pretty good other than at one point last week he refered to me as a "robot missionary" because I guess try to follow all the rules with exact obidience. We didn´t really get into an argument but we debated over it for a couple minutes. I tried to explain that a "robot missionary" is not a missionary who obeys all the rules it´s exactly the opposite. A real missionary obeys all the rules and commandments because he loves his God and Savior and wants to please them, and when he teaches he doesn´t teach a lesson or phrase that he memorized from a book he teaches a message that will help people and it´s with sincerity and love from all of his heart and soul. I don´t think that he completely agreed with me because he never really responded, but we were back to normal routine within the next ten minutes so I wasn´t really bothered by it.
I don´t have a lot more time and the computers and being kind of stupid today so I´ll have to leave it there and send some pictures. I´ll try to reply to as many of the personal e-mails as I can but can´t promise I´ll get to them all. I hope that you all are doing well and that you can feel God´s love in your life, because I know tha he truly loves each of us intimately and knows what it is that we need help with and how we need strengthened. I love you all and pray for you each day.
P.S. I don´t know what exactly the plan is for my P-Day next week cause that the day I leave for Rancagua (CRAZY!!!) but if I don´t get the chance to email it´ll be two weeks until my next email, so I guess we´ll see how all that pans out. Adiós.
Elder Conger
Only three pictures this week. So I don´t know if this is real but that´s David Archuleta´s name under a bed in our room haha, someone has to Google what CCM he went to. The other is the way we run for exercise each morning, and then two missionaries in another district that are some pretty cool guys. their names are Elder Mathews and Elder Blake.
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